In Word and PowerPoint you can collaborate from the desktop as well as online. In excel, whenever anyone opens the document on desktop others get locked out of editing and can only view. This is a problem for our organisation since occasionally remote team members need to edit the file on desktop but failure to close down the document properly (either accidentally or because the OS somehow did not release the file lock which has happened on Mac's) means the entire team is suddenly unable to work for extended periods until we track down the culprit.

Great news – as of today, we’ve released co-authoring in Excel for Windows Desktop to anyone who is in the Insiders Fast group. If you’re an O365 subscriber, you can get yourself into that group by going to http://office.com/insider

Once you are an Insider (Fast), you can co-author on files stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online, with anyone editing in Excel Online, or Excel on mobile (Android, Windows, and iOS).

We’d love to hear how it goes, and we encourage you to invite anyone you work with to also update to Insiders Fast (so that you can co-author with them).

= older =
Hi folks,
As Guy mentioned, we are working on this now. It’s a lot of work, so it’s not going to be done super-quick, but rest assured that this is something the team is focused on.
Note: We’d still love to get votes for this request if it’s important to you.
Thanks,
Dan [MS]

= 2017-03-28 =

Hi all,

Great news – as of today, we’ve released co-authoring in Excel for Windows Desktop to anyone who is in the Insiders Fast group. If you’re an O365 subscriber, you can get yourself into that group by going to http://office.com/insider

Once you are an Insider (Fast), you can co-author on files stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online, with anyone editing in Excel Online, or Excel on mobile (Android, Windows, and iOS).

We’d love to hear how it goes, and we encourage you to invite anyone you work with to also update to Insiders Fast (so that you can co-author with them).

Excel may be powerful, but its security is WEAK and can be HACKED easily. There are an increasing number of competitors who offer the ability to "compile" Excel files into a .exe file. It would be better if Microsoft offered this ability themselves.

The idea of end with the Excel DDE option is a EXTREMELY BAD one because it goes against the needs of the Excel users’ community.
Any update to one of the any of the Office Programs must obey to the following simple principles:
a) Make all the Office package easier to be used;
b) Make all the Office package more powerful/useful;
c) Make all the Office package more secure.

I work on excel file with multiple sheets whenever i want to send my working i need to copy it to new excel and send it. Can we have option of sending the selected worksheet over an email as new excel file with the name as your worksheet.

This will reduce lot of time and data for not saving in multiple files. Helps user to check in single file.

When I am sent a file via email, and I save it to my computer, it always adds "Copy of " to every fine name. It is very annoying to have to delete this every time. Is there a way to turn this feature off? I have searched online but not found solutions that are usable for non-programmers.

I have a document with a full URL to another SharePoint Online document. If you open that Excel document stored in SharePoint Online and edit with Excel desktop it by default changes the full https://tenant.sharepoint.com URL to a relative path "../_layouts/15/guestaccess.aspx?"

This results in the hyperlink no longer working when the Excel doc is viewed in Excel Online or after download and open for viewing in the desktop app.

The Update Links on Save feature should not alter SharePoint Online URLs.

When you protect the workbook structure, it prevents anyone from inserting, deleting, hiding, unhiding, moving or copying the sheets and even stops them from changing the tab colour. It would be nice if we could choose WHAT to protect (eg only deleting and unhiding sheets).

My idea is to create an own excel filefomat, which contain all spreadsheets and diagram etc. but only with cell values, not with formulas. Before saving, Excel will fill all cells with the actuall values. It's like selecting all sheets, copy, and paste only values.

If you send this file to other people, it doesn't matter if you use one, vba based, formula or formula which are excisting only in an add-in you use. It's like creating a pdf-file, but you've the full excel-support in your file and the files would be much smaller.

I work as an managing accountant in germany and work with some Excel Add-in like SAP BI or Infor Office Add-In. This add-Ins work with own formulas which are only available for people who als use this add-in. Sometimes I send this files before filling all cells with values and so the recipient only see "name#" in the file.

My idea is to create an own excel filefomat, which contain all spreadsheets and diagram etc. but only with cell values, not with formulas. Before saving, Excel will fill all cells with the actuall values. It's like selecting all sheets, copy, and paste only values.

If you send this file to other people, it doesn't matter if you use one, vba based, formula or formula which are excisting only in an add-in you use. It's like creating a pdf-file, but you've the full excel-support in your file and the files would be much smaller.

I would like the ability to 'compile' workbooks into a more secure file format similar to how you can save a powerpoint show. Something like *.xlcx or *.xlcm for compiled files.

User still need excel to open such files, but when they open it, there is a 'landing sheet/form', the ribbon bar is hidden completely, right-click menus disabled by default, and the users cannot maintain formulas or access the Visual Basic editor. For added security the VBA code in the worksheets and modules can be encrypted or for enhanced performance it can be compiled into lower level code?

Basically the user cannot edit the workbook or even unlock it it to be edited, it just allows the user to excute whatever is allowed.

With improved userforms (and the ability for the userforms to be fullscreen) Excel files can be made to look and feel like stand-alone applications.

I would like the ability to 'compile' workbooks into a more secure file format similar to how you can save a powerpoint show. Something like *.xlcx or *.xlcm for compiled files.

User still need excel to open such files, but when they open it, there is a 'landing sheet/form', the ribbon bar is hidden completely, right-click menus disabled by default, and the users cannot maintain formulas or access the Visual Basic editor. For added security the VBA code in the worksheets and modules can be encrypted or for enhanced performance it can be compiled into lower level code?